ELBE TIDAL MODEL WITH MOVABLE BED

Hans Vollmers, Egon Giese

Abstract

The Bundesanstalt filr Wasserbau (BAW) was charged to investigate an estuary tidal model of the Elbe-river (North Sea). The model, fitted with a movable bed, serves for special research with regard to suitable actions for the enlargement and maintenance of the main navigable channel in the sea area. Because in tidal estuaries the interaction of fluid and solid material is extremely unknown, the investigation was undertaken to find out the arising morphological changes, only caused by tidal currents, considering structure or dredging works present or planned in prototype. The procedure seems advantageous and a better way as speculative interpretations of sediment movements, derived from flow velocities in a fixed bed model. The horizontal scale of the model is 1:800, the vertical scale 1:100. After basic considerations as similarity, hydrology, morphology, respectively, specifications of the modelling technique are given and finally some test results are discussed.